


Fear

by jesus-otaku (amiraculousladybug)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Stream of Consciousness, at least I think so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6556069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amiraculousladybug/pseuds/jesus-otaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is missing. And if there's one thing Mikasa hates, it's not knowing where Eren is or if he's all right.<br/>This fic was posted over a year ago on Tumblr so it is very much not up-to-date with the events of the manga anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear

**Author's Note:**

> This is way behind where the storyline is now. But I didn't have AO3 yet when I wrote this, so here it is anyway.

This was possibly the worst day of her life.

Well, actually, the past few days were all more or less tied for that title. To Mikasa, nothing was worse than knowing nothing about where Eren was, what was happening to him, or if he was even okay. She knew he was probably fine – nobody else she knew managed to defy the odds like Eren did – but that did nothing to stop her from worrying. At the moment, it required a lot of self-control for her not to panic. She would have expected somebody to hear something about Eren by now.

Instead there was only silence.

Mikasa didn't need Eren. She was aware of that. And he more than likely did not need her either. They were just two kids that had gone through far too much together, who had convinced themselves that they needed one another. She wasn't even sure if Eren believed that he needed her. Perhaps this was all in her mind, a completely one-sided emotion. But even if they didn't truly _need_ each other, there was something in their relationship that made Eren the only person she wanted to reveal her whole self to. Perhpas it was simply that she owed him her life and felt like she could never really repay him for it. Perhaps it was just her convincing herself that Eren was important because she thought he should be. Whatever it was, though, it was there, and it was that something that was giving her this mentally crippling fear that constantly gnawed at the back of her mind no matter where she was or what she did.

She shouldn't be this in love with him.

But she was.

_He doesn't need you at his side to stay alive all the time._

_He knows how to take care of himself._

_Stop driving yourself into a corner like this._

_What would Eren think if he saw this side of you?_

That was one of her worst fears, following closely behind the fear of something happening to Eren: her fear that if Eren knew how she felt about him, he would be somehow disappointed.

Armin had said that people who weren't willing to sacrifice would never change anything.

What did that say about her?

She would never be willing to sacrifice Eren.

Did that make her weak, somehow? She had claimed to be strong, so many times...had believed in her own strength. She knew that it was very possible that, at some point, Eren might die as a sacrifice for humanity, and the knowledge sometimes woke her in a cold sweat at night. Did having nightmares about Eren's possible death make her less of a soldier?

Mikasa sank back against the wall, dipping her face forward to bury it in the soft fabric of her scarf. The scarf Eren had given her, all those years ago, after helping her learn that she needed to fight for her survival. It was all she had to remind herself of him, when he was gone like this. It was, for Mikasa, a symbol of hope and courage and life, but also a scrap of memory of a scrawny, brown-haired boy who cried when he had to kill someone. A boy who had shouted at her to fight to live. A boy who had offered her a home and a place in the cold, cruel world.

A boy who had become her family, her best friend, and her love.

Mikasa wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face further, taking in the familiar scent that had slowly begun to change as it picked up the reek of battle. There was still a small thread of home to the scent, though; the smell of a warm house, of fresh meals, of a mother's embrace, of the grass by the side of the porch. It took her back for a moment to a time when Wall Maria was still standing and the titans seemed like a far-off threat only experienced by the Survey Corps, and she and Eren were just two children with the whole of their lives ahead of them.

She wished she could go back to that time.

She wished she wasn't so scared of losing Eren.

She wished she could be as cold as she pretended to be.

She wished she could have told him, at least once, those words that were always so impossible to say.

“ _Hey, Eren.”_

“ _Yeah?”_

“ _I love you.”_

 


End file.
